


Saving Sherlock

by eloquated



Series: Stranger Than Fiction [2]
Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Set during The Reichenbach Fall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-08
Updated: 2019-04-08
Packaged: 2020-01-06 22:17:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18397454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eloquated/pseuds/eloquated
Summary: Stephen Strange has been in an accident, nobody is sure how extensive the damage is.Sherlock Holmes is determined to stop Moriarty, even at the cost of his own life.And Molly Hooper has to choose her battles.





	Saving Sherlock

**Author's Note:**

> My strangeolly fics have officially become a series! 
> 
> Timeline wise, this one takes place after [Practice Exam](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18360404), and a few months before [Three Hundred Drafts](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18383939).

_Did you hear?_

_Isn’t it terrible?_

_He was such a brilliant surgeon._

_But of course--_

_No, I know. But still…_

_So it was just a freak accident?_

_That’s what I heard._

Doctors were like anyone else, they gossipped and speculated. They talked about things they probably, technically, shouldn’t.  They laughed about the things they saw during the day, and the foibles of their patients, because sometimes that was the only thing standing between them, and the ones they couldn’t help.

Ten years of schooling was never enough to play God.

The smell of the cafeteria dinner option churned and cramped in Molly’s stomach, pushing the sour taste of bile up the back of her throat until it was all she could taste.  She hadn’t thought about Stephen in years-- well, five months, but only because Medical Quarterly had run a article on his latest, greatest accomplishment, complete with picture on the front cover.

That had been a hard week. And it didn’t hold a candle to the sinking, quicksand feeling that was threatening to pull her down.  Like it had opened up under the scarred, Formica table, and was intent on pulling her down.

_Stephen’s alive, he has to be.  Has to be, has to be, has to be._

The words turned over and over in her mind until they felt like white noise; this and useless against the deluge of _what if…?_

Giving up her meal for a lost cause, Molly hugged her arms around herself-- stand tall, stiff upper lip, just keep putting one foot in front of the other.   _He isn’t in your life anymore, you don’t owe him all of this hurt!  Just keep walking. He’s going to be fine, and you’re going to be fine, and. Just. Keep. Walking._

Not sure what else to do, and with nearly an hour left on her lunch (oh the joys of working a double) Molly detoured down to the locker room to fetch her coat.  She wasn’t entirely sure where she was going to go, but _outside_ seemed like a good start.

A little air.

Something to clear her head, and the helpless gnawing behind her ribs.  Stephen was fine. He was going to be fine. She knew better than to listen to the rumour mill-- honestly!  Was she twelve? No. He was in a good place. Getting all the help he needed.

She had to believe that, the alternative was unthinkable.

“Molly!”

No.   _No no no no no!_

“Oh, hello- I’m just going out!”  The sinking lurch in her belly turned over painfully when the two men flanked her.  Over the last few years, it had gotten easier to see Sherlock as _Sherlock_ , and not as the uncannily similar reflection of the man she’d…

_Stephen…_

“No you’re not.”

“I’ve got a lunch date.”  She offered weakly, even as he began to chivvy her towards the T-junction.  Left to the front doors, right to the morgue. He must have come right to the staff entrance to find her.  It would almost have been flattering, if it didn’t come with a side order of heartache and frustration.

“Cancel it. You’re having lunch with me.  I need your help. It’s one of your boyfriends. We’re trying to track him down. He’s been a bit naughty.”

Molly was half certain she was going to faint.

The rushing noise in her ears sounded ominously loud.

_Pulsatile tinnitus.  Caused by turbulent blood flow.  Must calm down. Calm down._

Molly knew if she were to take her pulse at that moment, it would be racing.  Spilling adrenaline into her bloodstream, making her feel wired and nauseous, and increasing aware of the tears that burned in the corners of her eyes.

This wasn’t Stephen.  This was Sherlock. Impossible, and stubborn, and with absolutely no respect for her life, or her work-- unless it was convenient for him!  

‘Which…?”

“It’s Moriarty?”  John interjected, and Molly wasn’t sure if she wanted to laugh, or cry.  Of course it was Jim! Who else would it be? From behind, Molly could only see Sherlock’s thatch of black hair, and the upturned collar of his jacket.  

His hands, wielding crisp packets like they were any substitute for the grey mush in the canteen, or a cup of coffee from across the street.  And those were too similiar, as well; long fingered and lovely. And Molly didn’t want to think about Stephen’s hands, mangled and pinned together, or the pain he must be in.

She knew how those hands-- no, not those-- those were Sherlock’s, acting as grist for her vivid imagination.  Molly knew how they’d felt on her body.

How it felt to be pulled back against Stephen’s chest in his sleep, his fingers gripping more tightly than he’d allow when he was awake.  

And in an instant, with a stab of deja vu, it was four years earlier-- and Sherlock had just walked into the morgue like it was his private playground, and Molly had been so sure.   _So sure_ , for just an instant, that he was Stephen.

Of course, Sherlock had assumed it was some unrequited crush on her part, and she hadn’t been able to correct him.  Egocentric prat. She hadn’t wanted (and still didn’t want) him to deduce her flushed cheeks, or her distraction around him.

Falling for Sherlock Holmes would have been a whole new variety of masochism.  

And unfair to him.  Sherlock deserved better than to be the stand-in… The understudy… For a man that had probably forgotten Molly entirely.

She could have loved him.  Maybe.  Had things been different.  But would it have mattered?

After all, Sherlock would never.  Could never.  Have loved her back.

 _Clearly_ , Molly thought, she had a type that was no good for her.

“Jim wasn’t actually my boyfriend. We went out three times. I ended it.”  Was the only thing she could think to say, before she was pulled through the doors, and down the morgue stairs.

“Yes, and he stole the Crown Jewels, broke into the Bank of England and organized a prison break at Pentonville.’

“For the sake of law and order I suggest you avoid all future attempts at a relationship, Molly.”

The irony wasn’t lost on her.  

_At least helping with Jim is something useful you can do?_

 

***

 

“Molly, I didn’t know you went to King’s.”

The morgue had been quiet for nearly twenty minutes, the three of them working methodically through their projects.  Molly wasn’t sure what she was supposed to be discerning from the constituents of the kidnapper’s shoe treads, but she also knew better than to ask too many questions.

Sherlock wouldn’t answer them, anyway.  No, if the last few years had taught her anything, it was that it was better to wait.  When he had his answer, he’d gloat-- and she could parse out the details for herself.

With a slight start, Molly followed the line of John’s gaze over to her bag, and the small crest pin she’d attached to the front.  With a subtle nod she looked down at her work, and set the tiny pipette off to the side.

The particles in her test tube needed to settle, anyway.

“For my doctorate.  Before that--”

“You did one- no, two- years in America.  As evidenced by your minor addiction to those American peanut butter sweets.”

“It’s not an addiction!  They’re just nice.”

“ ‘Nice’ doesn’t explain the packets of them hidden at the back of your freezer.”

John snorted under his breath, one eyebrow arched as he turned a page the reference manual he was searching, “And how would you know that?”  He asked after a beat.

Molly was entirely sure her face was every possible shade of red.  What she wasn’t sure, was if death by embarrassment was better than dwelling on Stephen.  And all the things she couldn’t do to help.

Predictably, Sherlock ignored the question, and after a moment, John turned the next page with a rustle and asked, “Molly, have you heard about this doctor bloke in America?  Seems like it was all people could talk about at the surgery this morning.”

Most of the time, Molly didn’t mind John.  Today, she wanted (for a brief, unkind moment) to push him into the hole that had just opened under her feet.  

“I… Yeah.  I heard. I... Knew him.  Actually. Went to the same university when I was living there.  He’ll be ok.”

“You think?  Not from what I heard.”

_He’ll be ok, he’ll be ok, he’ll be ok, he has to be._

Molly could remember coming home.  How the boxes of their life together had been stacked in the small, worn flat that was supposed to be theirs.

How he’d told her the night before their flight left, that he couldn’t do it.   _“Just send my things back when you get there.”_

And that had been it.

One box at a time, she’d disassembled the life they were supposed to share, alone.  She’d packed away the clothes that had smelled like him, and the books he’d filled with his own, scrawled notes.  

She’d found a new flat, because she couldn’t live there.  It was theirs, and too big for one person.

Molly had cried, and refused to look at the photos of them together-- and she’d resisted the urge to throw the lot of them into the bathtub with a lit match.  

Biting her tongue, Molly looked down at her project, and tried to stop her hands from shaking when she picked up the pipette again.

“Could the both of you stop your inane chattering, and focus on the work at hand?  People are going to _die_ if we don’t figure out what Moriarty is doing.”

It was good advice, no matter how impatient Sherlock sounded.

She couldn’t undo what had happened to Stephen.  Time was a fixed thing, a linear progression-- and some things were beyond Molly to fix.

But maybe she could save Sherlock.

**Author's Note:**

> Just a quick thanks to everyone whose taken the time to comment, and chat about this ship with me! You've all been so lovely and welcoming! 💕


End file.
